Possession and Dispossession
by zsuzsi
Summary: A quick drabble outlining a fight between Harry and Ginny - i guess neither of them come off looking very nice. Harry/Ginny, Harry/Draco


Disclaimer: This is a work of fan appreciation, I do not own any of the characters and (obviously) make no profit.

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She picks a strategic time to confront him, the morning before he's going to France for three weeks on an international case. She's up before him at six to make pancakes. So he thinks that she wants to share an early breakfast with him, a movement towards reconciliation. That's why he comes up behind her and gives a kiss on the neck. But she's ramrod stiff, she doesn't turn around and melt into his arms.

"You're always like this," she says, after he's sat down at the table and waited patiently for her to finish the pancakes, as she slams the plate down in front of him. "You always want to be the good one. But you also always do exactly whatever you want anyway. It's always, oh, I know you aren't feeling well, and I didn't want to bother you. _That's_ why you went out with the boys and didn't invite me. Out of kindness. And you behave like a sulky little child, just because I won't go along with that, that – fake version of events!"

Harry just looks down at his plate, not answering. She's digging her heels in for a big storm, but he'll weather through it, just as always – it's because he's looking down that he misses the flash of lightening in her eyes.

"And there's another thing, Harry! Me getting angry and you just sitting there, like a hurt puppy. I can't stand it! It makes me look like the bad one again, and you know what, I'm not, and I'm allowed to get angry, and..!" She flails incoherently for a moment. She has a point, he can admit, in his heart of hearts. Later on he may confide the tale of her rage to Hermione, who may pass it on to Ron, who will then pass it on to his mother and sway the balance of collective Weasley empathy in his favor for another week. He needs to be able to talk to someone anyway, he thinks, pardoning himself. He'd go crazy if there wasn't Hermione and Draco he could talk with.

"I want you to fight back, prove to me you really care – not just this cold manipulative shit, and, God, you know what, forget it." She throws down her dishtowel before putting her fist on her hip. Always the theatrical gesture with Ginny, and she has the nerve to call him manipulative.

"That's it, Harry, we're done. I want you to move out."

It's like a held breath has been released, although there's nothing but still air hanging between them, as he processes what she'd said. Finally, what he's been waiting for.

In that moment, he feels the scrape of Draco's teeth on his neck, and knows – they've gotten away with it. She'll never know that he slept with Draco first, before they separated – she doesn't guess it. He'll say it started in Paris, and she'll continue thinking that her husband was always a self-righteous, self-martyring prig.

The urge is there to throw it in her face, because God knows he'd like to hurt her right now - you can't end a relationship of five years without having it be painful. You never knew who I was anyway, all you could see was the image in your own mind. He wants to say this and yet he won't, because it wouldn't make any difference and because the satisfaction of knowing that despite all her posing and psychoanalysis she's still a little in the dark outweighs it.

His bag is already packed sitting by the door, ready for him to meet Draco at the floo at eight. That's why he doesn't quite understand at first when Ginny thrusts her hand out, gesturing impatiently towards the key in his hand.

"Give it to me, Harry. Don't come back. I'll send all your stuff around to Grimmauld Place, you don't need to bother about it."

He looks at her, wide-eyed. She thinks she's keeping the flat? It's Harry's old bachelor pad, and she's hated it for years.

"Fine," he grinds out. She's surprised; she thought he would fight her on that, he knows it, because, after all, that flat is – was – his. But then her mouth twists into a grim smile.

"Still playing the good one, then?" She almost spits. "I don't care."

I'm fucking Draco Malfoy, he thinks hard at her. Draco's lean, pale body, overlaid with yours in bed, Draco who's more sensuous that you ever were, because he doesn't pose the way you do, Draco who _fucks_ the way he wants to fuck instead of the way he thinks he ought to do it. I'm not the good one, I never was, and you were never smart enough to see it.

He doesn't want to say that, though, so he just drops the key on the ground – might as well make her pick it up- grabs his bag, slams the door shut, and disapparates. He could have just done that from inside, but the slam was worth it.

When he apparates by the floo, Draco's already standing there – in gray-blue robes, fiddling with his wand. Harry must look upset, because as soon as Draco looks up at him his eyes widen in alarm.

He wonders how Draco is going to react to this, whether he'll be glad and laugh at Ginny or whether he'll be scared because, after all, the marriage is what's been keeping their relationship 'til now on a low burn. It doesn't matter. The buzzing in his head that came from the fight - almost like nausea - is fading in Draco's presence. It doesn't make sense, but that's how it is –the fight is growing distant, pushed gently towards the back of Harry's mind, because all he can ever concentrate on when Draco's around is _Draco_.

"I'm finished with Ginny," Harry says, and waits.

Draco frowns at him, but then he smiles.


End file.
